Pride Month in Jacksonville took on a unique and powerful form this year, as residents rallied against Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis' attempt to limit public displays of LGBTQ+ pride.
For the past three years, Jacksonville’s Acosta Bridge has been illuminated with rainbow colors to celebrate Pride Month. However, this year the Florida Department of Transportation mandated that all state-owned bridges be lit in red, white, and blue to honor “Freedom Summer,” a new initiative that some critics argue was designed to prevent municipalities from displaying Pride colors.
In response, Jacksonville residents took matters into their own hands. On Friday night, 70 people gathered on the pedestrian walkway of the Main Street Bridge, near the Acosta Bridge, and simultaneously turned on multi-colored flashlights, creating a rainbow display over the St. John's River, according to the Jacksonville Times.
According to the newspaper:
"The 70 people holding flashlights on the bridge were cheered on by a big crowd watching from the Southbank riverwalk.
"It was a night of many lights in downtown: Friendship Fountain sent columns of multi-colored water into the air where the crowd watched the Main Street bridge, fireworks went off over the baseball field at the sports complex after a Jumbo Shrimp game, downtown towers had their usual array of decorative lighting, and the Acosta Bridge had red, white and blue lights running down the middle of it."
A photo of the bridge lit up in Pride colors is included below.
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You can see a news report about the act of protest below.
Jax pride group walks Main Street Bridge as a response to Acosta Bridge’s patriotic lightingwww.youtube.com
Matt McAllister, who organized the event in less than 48 hours, was honeymooning with his husband in Leipzig, Germany when he learned about the directive. The Department of Transportation had declared that state-owned bridges would only display red, white, and blue lights from Memorial Day to Labor Day, eliminating the possibility of Pride-themed lighting.
He said:
“We thought we’d get 35 people for the bridge. We thought that would be a good night — that we’d get a couple of pictures and send them to our friends and say we did something. That this took off in such a way is so pleasing.”
"I thought it came off great. If this is about freedom, let’s go exercise our freedom, and that’s what is so special about what we did tonight."
Many are cheering his act of defiance.
LGBTQ+ people in Florida face challenges and dangers due to recent anti-LGBTQ+ policies and rhetoric from Republican elected officials.
DeSantis has been at the forefront of this antagonistic environment, pushing policies that target the rights and well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals.
His actions include banning trans students from participating in school sports, signing a bill to prohibit transgender people from using bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity in government buildings, and overseeing the implementation of a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth.
In response to DeSantis' actions and the overall unfriendly atmosphere for LGBTQ+ people in Florida, the Human Rights Campaign issued a travel warning for the state, highlighting the ongoing challenges faced by LGBTQ+ individuals and calling it a "state of emergency."
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